CREDIT: ISMAIL ARAVAI
Ismail Aravai is will be the Fanshawe Student Union (FSU) president for the 2022/23 school year.

The votes are in and the new Fanshawe Student Union (FSU) president is Ismail Aravai. The business management graduate inched out ahead of fellow candidate Franck Albert Sigah to win the race. Voting closed March 9 at 2 p.m.

Aravai will take up the position after a year of working as the FSU’s student life coordinator. Aravai has also been a Class Representative, and has even volunteered for the Fanshawe Friends and Inspire Mentoring programs. He felt confident that his past experience with the FSU prepared him for his new role.

“The experience and the involvement that I had in the FSU in the past…. has really given me the exposure of how important FSU is for students and how the FSU thinks of students as important,” said Aravai.


As a student life coordinator, Aravai ran several awareness weeks including those focused on mental health, sexual health, addiction, and anti-bullying. The main pillars Aravai plans to tackle as president are networking opportunities for students, mental health, diversity and inclusion, and collaborating to build strong relationships with students and partners. For Aravai, networking opportunities will be his first priority as president, especially as restrictions lift and more students return to campus.

“[During] Orientation, we will have a lot of networking opportunities, and just bringing some good events for students to collaborate, that would be the first thing,” said Aravai. “Just trying to add something in terms of events for students to network.”

Aravai made sure to send a special thanks to all of his supporters.

“I [am] very thankful to all my friends, family and everyone I know, all the students I’ve met [during] my tenure at Fanshawe,” he said. “I’m very grateful for all the support and I will be working for the students.”

Aravai also sent a message to students as he prepares to step into the role of president.

“I know 2021 was a roller coaster ride,” he said. “[But] we as students, we can get through anything. We’ve been juggling jobs, and assignments, and courses and all that and also we have a social life that we have to be part of. COVID has been hard on us, mostly our students, but if we are together, we can get through anything.”

Students also elected a new Board of FSU Directors and Governors. Your new FSU Directors are Abhaye Muraleedharan Sujala, Anila Mohan, Chetan Singh Chauhan, Drhuv Pandya, Mohammad Areeb Shamsi, Tom Hutchison Hounsell and Vatsal Tripathi. Your new Student Board of Governor is Dr. Samrat Raj, a general management, marketing and strategic leadership graduate from University of Delhi, India.